I Remember Singing

"This I remember was very special about Hugo; he sang for the little ones to comfort them when they were scared and missing their families." Alice Resch Synnestvedt, Rescuer of Jewish children during the Holocaust Hugo Schiller was seven years old when Hitler's Nazis dragged his father Oskar from their home in Grünsfeld, Germany and took him to the concentration camp Dachau. Two weeks later they brought him back without explanation, and forced him to sell Rosenbusch and Company, the family store. When Hugo's school principal informed him that he could no longer go to school because he was Jewish, Hugo's parents sent him to Offenbach, Germany to live with two aunts and go to school. The morning after he arrived home for vacation break, Hitler's uniformed Nazi troops came for the family, giving them one hour to pack a suitcase and leave. Hugo and his family were deported to Gurs, a refugee camp in the South of France where they were held behind barbed wire in intolerable living conditions and with scanty food. At the muddy Gurs camp near the Pyrenees Mountains, Hugo sang for bread for his Mother Selma and Aunt Hilda who were starving. One day cheerful Alice Resch drove into Camp de Gurs in a truck with a canvas flapping on the back. Working with the Quaker Refugee Relief agency, she had gained permission from the Vichy French Government to help feed the children. Soon after, she gained permission to take Hugo and the other children from Gurs to the children's home in Aspet. In Hugo's true story there is unspeakable loss but also great triumph on many levels. Hugo Schiller, child-hero, bravely survived the Holocaust by helping others. Today, he speaks about his experiences and about how to help make certain a Holocaust never happens again.